Those were all reason that Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni, 42, and Officer Robert McDonald 25, of suburban Atlanta, Georgia gave to justify their use of excessive force on April 12, 2017 upon 21-year old Demetrius Hollins.

Then bystander video was released showing what happened after Demetrius was placed in handcuffs and laying on the ground. The video shows McDonald running up to a handcuffed Demetrius, stomping on his head as if he was stomping an insect.

Another bystander video was released showing the traffic stop. In it, Bongiovanni is shown punching Demetrius in the face as he gets out of the car with his hands up.

(left) Robert McDonald; (right) Michael Bongiovanni

What the videos show is inconsistent with reports given by the police.

The officers were fired, and charged with violation of oath of office and misdemeanor battery. Violation of oath of office is a felony.

Demetrius had been charged with numerous offenses. All charges against him were subsequently dismissed.

In February of this year, Gwinnette County District Attorney Danny Porter took the matter before a grand jury on additional felony charges. The grand jury returned a 10-count indictment, including charging Bongiovanni with battery, aggravated assault for pointing a gun at Demetrius, burning him with a taser, and lying about Demetrius resisting arrest.

Bongiovanni and McDonald want separate trials.

Demetrius Hollins’ attorney says the indictment is a good start, but there’s still a long way to go.

The fearful thing is knowing that had bystanders not videotaped the incident, it would have been brushed under the rug. The officers would still be on the street using excessive force and misrepresenting the facts in their reports to place blame on suspects.

Now, the District Attorney is looking at about 30 other cases involving the two officers.

The following video includes bystander videos and addresses the 30 cases.

Hi Yahtzee. The videos gave sufficient evidence to indict. Let’s hope the juries see them the same way and convict. You know I’m somewhat jaded when it comes to juries Remember other cases, such as Michael Slager, where the jury couldn’t reach a decision and hung.

The jury didn’t see the planting of the taser next to Scott’s body as “malice aforethought.” That’s because rather than focusing on the murder charge, they wanted to convict him of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Thus, the jury believed that shooting a running suspect in the back is a “brief disturbance” and not outright murder. See what I mean about juries?

It would seem that the average jury involved in these cases search for a reason not to convict rather than listen to the evidence. I tend to place the blame on society as a whole as we really have not reached the point that equality of justice is to be found, and race still plays far to much in the verdict of the jury…

Mothman,
You hit the proverbial nail on the head. Jury instructions are given to jurors at the closing of the case. They sit through the entire trial not knowing the elements of crime(s) that prosecutors have the burden of proving. When they go into deliberations, jury instructions are as good as blank pieces of paper because jurors have sat through trial, and heard testimony that is judges by their own comprehension or lack thereof. Then they are told “these are the facts” when those facts have been painted with their personal biases throughout trial.

While I would like to see this happen, I suspect that once again justice will be not be served in the courtroom. I would like to adopt a wait and see it happen attitude, but I really don’t look good in that shade of blue, so I don’t think I will hold my breath waiting for it to happen!

Mothman,
You give me too much credit. It’s not that I have much faith in people and frankly, I have no faith in people who I do not know. I’ve heard too many stories from people who sat on juries of going along to get along, because they wanted to get back to their regular life. One woman on a jury in a medical malpractice case told me that they decided for the physician because he had more expert witnesses than the plaintiff. She did not remember any testimony — just the number of expert witnesses. In another case, the jury found for the physician because the man was disabled and already receiving disability — so they didn’t think he deserved more money. They did not construe the difference between income and damages.

Here on this blog was a person who claimed to serve on the jury in the case where an off-duty deputy sheriff shot a 14-year old in the back who was crawling away from him. She stated that the deputy had less than 5 seconds to see if the kid had a gun or not. (He was unarmed.) Well, guess what? The time between the kid falling to the floor, to the time of the first shot, was not discussed at trial. Aren’t jurors told that if there’s no testimony at trial, to not come up with their own, independent reasons to decide the case?

About a decade ago, I sent a message to a Judicial Conference that they placed too much faith in people. They make a bunch of rules regarding the practice of law to protect “consumers” who cannot understand the difference between procedures and legal advice, yet call those same “consumers” to serve on juries thinking that they will understand how to apply facts to the law.

There’s that saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse — but not when it comes to selecting juries. The least they could do is allow the judge to give a 30-minute introduction with questions and answers on applying facts to law.

Many this is a great start to the times changing. Let bigotry die the sudden death it deserves. Let the police be held responsible for their behavior as they insist others be held the behavior they do. Hugs

Do you suppose that a time will come when the legal community will understand that their actions are being recorded at a record rate? In this day and time even a cheap phone has the ability to record video and people that in the past that had no way to protect themselves now are armed with a very potent weapon, aka a cell phone! Perhaps it will technology that leads to forced equality?

Mothman,
I agree with you about technology. My greatest concern is wondering when juries will depend on what their eyes see, and their ears hear, more than the testimony of experts that police are trained to behave in the exact brutal manners that are recorded. One of the attorneys for one former officer has already raised that defense.

Bongiovanni can’t claim to be acting as trained to do when you can see the mans arms are in the air. He doesn’t need subduing. The courts are going to be jammed with appeals from cases either of these two worked for years back.
All police should be made to wear cams that record from their view and we’ll get to the truth quicker. Thank heavens for bypassers quick initiative though.
xxx Hugs xxx

David,
The problem is that the defense will find some mercenary expert to say that the defendant acted according to training. It takes keen prosecutors to break down the mumbo-jumbo into language that the jury understands, and then remind them during closing argument that the defense insulted their intelligence.